


dead hearts

by dxntdxdrxgs



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Diego is in Pain Too, Drug Use, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 17:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17872073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dxntdxdrxgs/pseuds/dxntdxdrxgs
Summary: “Klaus had his hands on the sink and his head under the water. He vaguely remembers Pogo’s lesson on fight or flight response, ambiguously aimed at him, with a sort of fleeting misery. Inevitably, when his lungs start to burn and his arms tense, he jerks up with a desperate and embarrassingly loud gasp that seems to make the mirror shudder on its hinges. His reflection looks positively drenched and tired, used up and burnt out with dark feral eyes that just won’t leave him alone.”





	dead hearts

Klaus had his hands on the sink and his head under the water. He vaguely remembers Pogo’s lesson on fight or flight response, ambiguously aimed at him, with a sort of fleeting misery. Inevitably, when his lungs start to burn and his arms tense, he jerks up with a desperate and embarrassingly loud gasp that seems to make the mirror shudder on its hinges. His reflection looks positively drenched and tired, used up and burnt out with dark feral eyes that just won’t leave him alone. 

Someone is behind him. 

He cries pathetically and shouts and shoves his head down again and wills himself to just let go and let the dark take him further and further—

The dark. 

He shoots up again and draws back until his legs hit the tub and he tumbles into a tired and spaced out heap. People surround him and his head lulls to the side, his body achingly tired and begging to be put to rest in one way or another, even if just for a second, but he knows the voices yelling at him well enough to know they’ll never let that happen. He wonders what he did to deserve this; he tried to be a good boy for Dad, he tried hard in his training, fought back the urge to cry when he got hit or yelled at, and he was trying so very hard to support his siblings. 

Klaus was eccentric and flamboyant, Mom’s words, said with love and adoration as she helped her son fit a feather boa over his slender shoulders at age fourteen with a look of triumph. Dad had Pogo dispose of the thing, and before Klaus got the chance to mourn its loss, he got a talk on puberty and girls and how he had to be oh so careful with passing on his lineage. When he’d said he didn’t care for girls like that, his father had looked so disappointed. That’s what always hurt the most. There were times when Dad didn’t yell or hit, he just looked utterly floored by how mediocre Klaus was compared to his siblings. 

Klaus stood up for Vanya. Not that she cared to notice, not that he could blame her either. No one noticed Klaus until he was being brutish and loud and forcing the attention on him, and the negativity seeped into his bones like a dirty poison every time someone set a pair of vaguely annoyed eyes on his form. Dad hated it when Klaus offered to write Vanya’s reports for her or went to include her. He felt weighed down with empathy for her the day Dad had told him there was simply nothing useful about his powers. 

Luther had jokingly called Klaus a Ouija Board when they sat at dinner one night, despite the no talking rule, and the fifteen year old had busted Luther’s nose and received a broken rib in return. It wasn’t a fair fight in the least, and Five had split them up by phasing in between them and throwing them off balance. Klaus got yelled at. 

Allison used to come into his room when it stormed for comfort, but that night, when the rain hit his window sill, he found Allison sitting on Luther’s bed and doting on his wound, while Klaus was left to try and nurse himself back to health. Mom hadn’t been told anything was wrong, and Klaus figured that meant Dad didn’t want her to know, so he kept his mouth shut. 

Diego brought him aspirin and an ice pack and carded his fingers through his hair until he fell asleep. He was gone when Klaus woke, and they never spoke about it, yet neither ever forgot. They also never spoke about the time Klaus conjured Diego’s kitten; not that Klaus actually had, but when his brother had begrudgingly asked for his help to tell the dead animal he loved him one last time, it no longer mattered that he didn’t see animals. He was going to be significant, and a good brother, but he overstepped and misspoke the cat’s eye color and Diego had looked gravely upon Klaus and ordered him out of his room. 

They didn’t talk for a while after that. 

When Klaus was sixteen he learned what the word “gay” truly meant. He came out, loud and proud as ever, and Mom had baked him a small cake in a congratulatory measure. Diego had promised to kick any man’s ass that hurt him, and Luther and Allison didn’t show up. Vanya played him a song and Five watched, and Ben’s spot around them was vacant and cold. Mom and Diego and Vanya loved him. Five tolerated him. 

Dad didn’t care that he was gay, and that pissed Klaus off for some reason. The man was never so neutral and he felt like it was just another way of saying Klaus was mediocre at best. He wasn’t like Vanya, he wasn’t normal, nor was he like Diego, who had layer upon layer of power. He was hitched in the middle, useless and devoid of any distinguishing thing. The drugs helped him be more like Vanya. 

Diego was disgusted in him, or so he feared, and when he left Klaus on the bathroom floor bleeding one night he knew it wasn’t out of malice. Diego had to leave, he had to, and Klaus was happy for him. Diego had scars where people could see, that’s how much Dad hated him, and Klaus had ones you couldn’t see because he was stupid enough to get in between a knife fight one night. Diego had ripped himself over that one. 

And now Klaus was Klaus and Dad was dead. He didn’t have to be a good boy anymore, hell, Klaus didn’t really have to do anything. Yet here he was, trying to stay sober for people who never loved him like he wished and he told himself Diego and Mom and Vanya did but he hadn’t had a single warm hug since he’d shown up— other than Allison, and hers always felt so stiff and cold and formal and God, Klaus just wanted a fucking hug. 

“Klaus?”

Diego’s head is tilted when he peeks in the door, and Klaus notices the music he’d been playing on his record player from earlier had landed on “Boys Don’t Cry” by The Cure. He laughed bitterly at how accurate the song was. Almost like a malevolent force had nudged the pin over until it played. 

“Hey, Didi.” 

“You alright, buddy?” 

The nickname makes his heart seize and sting and hurt, and he cries some more and hopes Diego just thinks he’s high again or something. But he sees his brother’s shoulders tense as he surveys the scene, and he closes his eyes when Diego’s land on his form with some odd mixture of pity and sympathy and anger. 

“Klaus, what did you do?”

Klaus hears the whispering get louder, almost shouts now, and his eyes fly back open and he stares at Diego to ground himself. His chest is heaving and his brother steps closer, hands held out tentatively as the other scoots as far away as he can. He doesn’t want a hug anymore, afraid that touching Diego will simply ruin him and pollute him with Klaus’ very own disease. 

“They’re so loud, Didi. They’re so fucking loud.” 

Diego recoils in shock, “you’re sober?” 

Ben is perched on the edge of the tub and he stares in concern. Klaus lunges for him and ends up on the floor in a rather pathetic heap. He screams and kicks and Diego simply throws the man over his shoulder with a low grunt. Klaus gets a good kick in on his lower thigh. 

“If you keep squirming I’m going to knock you out, Kl—“

“No! No, please, god— Diego, don’t, don’t make me close my eyes, please!” Klaus can’t breathe, not if he has to sleep, he can’t handle going back to that place. Not now. 

“Okay! Okay, bud, calm down, I got you. You don’t have to.” 

Diego hasn’t been this way with any of them in years. He’s been mellowed out. When Diego gently sits Klaus down on his bed and turns to shut the door, he finally feels alert enough to breathlessly slur, “what woman broke that hard shell of yours?” 

Diego punches him in the mouth. 

It’s a knee jerk reaction, Klaus realizes, watching the way Diego’s face morphs into mortification directly afterward; also, he doesn’t do anything when Klaus kicks him as hard as he can in the chest from his position on the bed, simply huffing and staring at a spot on the floor near his head. Klaus looks up and sees a woman looking at him. 

“A detective,” Klaus says hoarsely, and Diego’s eyes snap up. 

“Shut up, brother. I’m warning you, telling you, to shut your fucking mouth.” 

“Tell him it’s not his fault,” she says over his shoulder, looking at Klaus with imploring and strong eyes. Her energy is fierce, yet calm and sorrowful. She stares at his brother with so much love Klaus feels as though he might cry. “Tell him... Tell him I... Ask him to keep the rabbit’s foot with him.” 

“She says it’s not your fault,” Klaus whispers hoarsely. Diego looks absolutely furious, and Klaus’ hands go up in defense, “keep the rabbit’s foot with you! S-She said something about a rabbit’s foot!” 

Diego goes rigid. 

“Tell him my name. It’s Eudora.” 

“Eudora,” Klaus supplies, “she says her name is Eudora.” 

Diego is still deathly still when he mutters, “where is she?” 

“Beside him,” Eudora says to Klaus, “always.” 

He starts to cry now, tears trickling slowly as he feels guilt pricking at the corners of his mind. “She says she’ll always be beside you.” 

Diego looks over his right shoulder, like instinct, like he knows just like Klaus does, and his face is paler when he looks back at his brother. “Someone touched my arm.” 

Eudora smiles, wide and bright, and Klaus thinks he lovers her, too, in that moment. She loves his brother. “She wants to hold your hand, one last time.” 

Diego slowly opens his right hand, palm up, and Klaus focuses all his energy into that one moment. Eudora’s hand rests against his brother’s, and even though Klaus feels like he might collapse at any moment, he wouldn’t stop even if it killed him. Diego’s eyes are wide and he reluctantly closes his fingers when the weight leaves and Klaus sits up, panting lightly and trying not to vomit. 

“You— how?” 

“I didn’t do anything,” Klaus lies, “she loved you so much. That’s what did it, Didi.” 

Diego wraps Klaus up, big arms encircling his tiny frame with purpose and protectiveness. Klaus whines in the back of his throat and lets Diego hold him, closing his eyes and taking a shuttering breath as the voices seem to quiet briefly. Diego puts a hand on the back of his neck and gently works his fingers into his hair there, shushing Klaus gentler than he ever imagined possible, and the next thing he knows, he’s asleep. 

When he wakes up, Eudora and Ben are gone, along with everyone else. Diego is asleep too, his head at Klaus’ feet and his leg slung over his torso, taking up as much space as possible like the absolute brute he was. Klaus scoffs and shoves him off, yawning and stretching and listening to the satisfying crack of his bones. For once, for the first time ever, he feels genuinely well rested. 

“Good sleep, love?” The voice is tender and full of all the adoration in the world. 

Klaus’ heart stops.

“Dave...?”


End file.
